This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Mustang Bobby's Official Freak Flag Lapel Pins.
Recommended Reading:
Jill: Right-wing Cartoon Depicts Obama Raping the Statue of Liberty
Andy: Lt. Dan Choi: 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Still Forces People to Lie
Mary: But women are an advanced social skill…
Renee: Dan Savage Engages in More Transphobia
Lori: Here They Are: Your Top Ten Young Visionaries!
Matthew aka Seraph: The Past Isn't Dead. It Isn't Even Past: The Irish Hunger Memorial
Zuska: The Arts as a Healing Balm for Mansplaining's Psychic Ills
Leave your links in comments...
Monday Blogaround
Fat Nooz
1. Junk food addiction may be clue to obesity: study. I love the headline ("study"), particularly given that the story opens with the disclaimative line: "The findings in a study of animals cannot be directly applied to human obesity, but..." I also love this: "Obesity may be a form of compulsive eating." As if no one has ever considered a link between disordered eating and obesity before. Especially not every dipshit on the planet who assumes every fat person is fat because they gorge themselves on junk food 24/7. Which brings me to...
2. Plus-size models are better role models? Fat chance! Money quote: "Tolerance is the enemy of shame. With more and more fat acceptance...there will be more and more fat people. Nobody is born 300 pounds. Nobody 'suffers from' obesity. She chooses it, one milkshake at a time." LOL!
3. Better Ways to Help the Public Lose Weight. In which the New York Times seek ideas about the "sorts of public initiatives [that] can promote good eating habits without possibly resulting in discrimination against overweight people." Yay! And there are actually some very good insights here (and some not so good). Too bad they're buried below a headline equating weight loss with health and an image of a frowny face on a scale. FAIL!
4. To avoid breast cancer, ladies, just "avoid becoming overweight as an adult," but, if you're already suffering from CANCERFAT, all you've got to do is "convert more fat into muscle." It's that simple!
5. The workout: An exercise in futility? Subhead: "Canadians have been taught that the gym is a surefire path to shedding pounds. But some experts say gluttony, not sluggishness, is where we should be focusing our efforts." Good call. If only there were more people out there telling fat people to STOP BEING GLUTTONS! My favorite part of the article is this observation about fat people from Eric Ravussin, director of the Nutrition Obesity Research Centre at the Pennington Biomedical Research Centre in Baton Rouge: "First of all, most of them hate exercise." LOL!
6. Obesity: Food kills, flab protects. "Only when the body's fat cells, or adipocytes, are crammed to capacity do the problems of metabolic syndrome begin. The fully engorged adipocytes begin to die and leak their contents into the bloodstream, including saturated fatty acids such as palmitic acid. Such fats then accumulate in tissues such as the liver, pancreas and heart, where they may prompt the symptoms of metabolic syndrome." Gökhan Hotamisligil, a diabetes and obesity researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, describes the theory this way: "When fat cells break, it's like an oil tanker being hit. It unloads this toxic cargo, almost like an oil slick." Forget junk in the trunk. I've got TOXIC CARGO IN MY PANTS!
7. Elle magazine breaks fashion's last taboo: plus-size models on the cover. Shaker Joe says: "It's a little sad that the last taboo was a plus sized model. I would have preferred a Dalmatian in a party dress but whatever." Dear Elle: For the record, plus-size models on the cover of a magazine are not fashion's last taboo. Not even close. And, btw, call me when my fat ass can buy as many cute and fashionable clothes off the rack and a size 2, if you're so interested in radicalizing the industry. Kthxbai. Love, Liss.
[H/Ts, respectively, to Shakers Kevin Baker, MelissaRel, MelissaG, Museclio, lelumarie (and again), and Joe.]
A Quick History Lesson
Dear Military Folk,
Read about your idea of requiring "separate bunks for gays"* if gay servicepeople are allowed to serve openly.
Wanted to remind you we tried that separate-but-equal thing. It was never equal. It was unfair and stigmatizing.
People grew tired of it and effectively resisted.
The military finally gave it up.
I mean, it was even repudiated legally.
Yet, here you are, contemplating a march backwards. This is wrong for so many reasons, and not solely the ones I mentioned above.
As Vanessa pointed out in another forum, the very premise of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, acknowledges that there are already gays in the military. Why do you expect a problem to develop if they are allowed to serve openly? This idea, that gay servicepeople should be segregated, suborns homophobia, particularly, as a colleague of mine wrote, the idea that gays are indiscriminate in their desires and straight people are in danger/in need of rescue. You are insulting your own personnel with suggestions like this which imply they, as a whole, threaten other service people with sexual aggression and potentially, sexual violence.
If only you were as concerned with the actual and significant problem of sexual violence that occurs within your institution.
Though, I suppose you could flip the argument and try to say it was for the protection of gay personnel, especially given the current political climate towards any so-called "progressive" change. In that case, I'd still accuse you of upholding homophobia and some sort of macho-ethic (okay, I'd accuse you of that, anyway).
Why? Because if your solution to addressing the potential danger openly gay servicepeople would face, is to segregate them, rather than address the military culture which allows for that danger, you've totally missed the point.
Sincerely,
elle
___________________
*And I'm not relying on the opinion of one general as sole evidence that the government would consider this. The article says, "The question of whether changes to housing policies would be necessary is being addressed in a study to determine how to allow gays to serve openly."
Party Animal
I always thought RNC Chairman Michael Steele was a fuddy-duddy. Apparently I've misjudged him.
A February RNC trip to California, for example, included a $9,099 stop at the Beverly Hills Hotel, $6,596 dropped at the nearby Four Seasons, and $1,620.71 spent [update: the amount is actually $1,946.25] at Voyeur West Hollywood, a bondage-themed nightclub featuring topless women dancers imitating lesbian sex.I'm sure there's a simple explanation; he just stopped in to get directions to Pastor Rick Warren's church and use the bathroom.
Steve Benen has an update: "The RNC now claims that a 'non-committee staffer,' not Steele, spent the money at Voyeur West Hollywood. The RNC chairman, the party insists, was 'never at the location in question.'"
It probably goes without saying, but I'm all for everyone letting her or his freak flag fly high and proud. I'm just not sure that said flag-waving needs to happen on the RNC's dime -- but we'll see. Maybe the Republican donors are more open-minded than I am.
HT to digby and Melissa.
Cross-posted.
Have I Mentioned...
...a thousand or so times lately that the new battleground over abortion rights is on the state level, where anti-choicers are trying to render Roe an impotent statute...?
Louisiana: Women seeking abortions must have ultrasound just before procedure, bill proposes.
All women seeking abortions would have to undergo an obstetric ultrasound two hours before the procedure unless there is a medical emergency, under legislation proposed by the Senate's second-ranking lawmaker.Georgia: Senate passes abortion bill, would make it a crime to convince woman to abort child.
Senate President Pro Tem Sharon Weston Broome, D-Baton Rouge, said the bill is designed to make a woman "think twice about having an abortion. This is such a serious decision that a woman makes, the process should be exhausted with all the medical information on the procedure" available, she said.
"This bill was created under the false assumption that abortion doctors solicit women of color, particularly, black women," said Sen. Donzella James of College Park.Naturally, I don't want to see any woman coerced into doing anything she doesn't want to do, including having an abortion. But a law created by a bunch of Republicans who don't give a flying flunderton about policy that helps impoverished women, particularly impoverished women of color, grandstanding about how they want to stop "boyfriends and pimps and mothers" from forcing pregnant women of color to get abortions, is just absurd. This law will clearly be used to target clinics, and reduce affordable access to abortion for the women (of any color) with the fewest options.
...Throughout the afternoon, a host of senators – both Republicans and Democrats – lined up to speak for or against the bill. ... Several times, the words China, socialism, genocide, Obamacare, Holocaust and even serfs were used to show where the country is going.
"We are following China in many ways toward the road to socialism," said Sen. Tommie Williams (R-Lyons). "We are beginning that road to serfdom ourselves."
Going back to the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, Williams said that in 1973, when the Supreme Court upheld a woman's right to an abortion, more than 90 percent of the country was against it.
A statistic that Vincent Fort of Atlanta found dubious.
"In 1865, if you had taken a public opinion poll on slavery, I would still be in chains," Fort said. "What we are doing here is irresponsible, to use genocide and holocaust and allusions to death panels. The underlying belief is that women of color cannot make decisions of themselves."
[H/Ts to Shakers Anitanola and Redlady 50.]
Not Even Healthcare Reform!
Shaker EastSideKate emails:
Coverage Now for Sick [or Disabled] Children? Check Fine Print.Yeah. I don't really have anything to add to that—except, perhaps, to add that Senator John Rockefeller is positively adorable when he's SHOCKED! and OUTRAGED! at insurance companies acting like greedy weasel scum: "The ink has not yet dried on the health care reform bill, and already some deplorable health insurance companies are trying to duck away from covering children with pre-existing conditions. This is outrageous." Awwwww.
Short version:
Insurance companies: "It's expensive to give health insurance that covers kids' pre-existing conditions, so we won't give them insurance at all. There's nothing in the bill about that."
Democrats: "We are shocked, we tell you, shocked, that for-profit companies are acting as if they're in some sort of competitive marketplace."
Rest of the world (in unison): "We. Told. You. So."
Collective headdesk. Exit stage right.
*Rage*Fume*Seethe*
[Trigger warning.]
So. The Vatican has "gone on the defensive" against those who would try to "smear" the Catholic Church leadership with a despicable campaign of telling the truth about how the Catholic Church has abetted child rape for decades.
And, because he's totes classy like that, the Pope used the occasion of his Palm Sunday sermon yesterday to stick it to the Church's critics.
While he did not directly mention the scandal involving sexual abuse of children by priests, parts of his sermon could be applicable to the crisis.Because you know how petty it is for assholes who think child rape is wrong to "gossip" about it. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned: I refused to be silent about the institutional rape of children.
The pontiff said faith in God helps lead one "towards the courage of not allowing oneself to be intimidated by the petty gossip of dominant opinion."
One prayer asked God to help "the young and those who work to educate and protect them," which Vatican Radio said was intended to "sum up the feelings of the Church at this difficult time when it confronts the plague of pedophilia."You know what neither helps nor protects "the young" who have been sexually abused...? Silence.
Silence is a secondary trauma, not a solution.
The only people who are "helped" and "protected" by silence are sexual predators. And if the Church leadership had taken even the most basic steps to learn about assault prevention, they'd know that. They'd beg the media to cover the issue and beg the police and independent investigators to get involved, instead of relying for decades on internal investigations, conspiring with police to conceal evidence, and going on a defensive against coverage of this ongoing problem.
As the scandal has convulsed the Church, the Vatican has gone on the offensive, attacking the media for what it called an "ignoble attempt" to smear Pope Benedict and his top advisers.I just... ARGH.
What drives me to absolute distraction about this issue is that no matter how bad, how endemic, child sex abuse in the Catholic Church may seem in media reports, it doesn't touch the reality of how ubiquitous it is. Every person I've ever known who's done survivor work with male survivors reports the same thing: Person after person after person after person after person reporting sex abuse at the hands of a Catholic priest.
Being on the other side of this crisis, it absolutely infuriates me that the Vatican is taking the position that the issue is being exaggerated, when I suspect few of us can truly contemplate its vastness.
March Douchebag of the Month
This guy is always in the running for D-Bag of the Month pretty much thirteen months a year, but former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Under the Poop Bubble) takes the top honors this month.
Gingrich called on Dems to take responsibility. For the death threats emanating from the far-right.
"I think the Democratic leadership has to take some moral responsibility for having behaved with such arrogance, in such a hostile way, that the American people are deeply upset."
Yeah, okay.
Because those threats have nothing to with the toxic culture of hatred and lies the right wallows in.
Trailer for Every Oscar-Winning Movie Ever
Found out yesterday that a lot of folks haven't seen this yet.
Open Thread
Hosted by Rod Serling.
This week's open threads have been brought to you by the Twilight Zone. Doo-doo-doo-doo Doo-doo-doo-doo
Illustrating Privilege
We're here in Chicago, and thanks to the generosity of our hosts (laurakeet and her partner), I'm able to post despite having cleverly left my laptop power cord at home.
As we drove down yesterday, we were stopped briefly at the border, when the lovely gents at DHS decided I didn't have enough on me to prove that I was coming back to Canada.
I thought, briefly, that it might be funny to point out that my Health card provided a pretty good incentive for me to go back, but thought better of it*.
We pulled over into the inspection bay. And we went inside, as asked, and waited to see an officer. Meanwhile, they're searching the car behind us.
While it's happening, I'm thinking, "Oh...I really hope that I didn't put my stash or one of my pipes in my bag on autopilot while packing the last-minute stuff!" And the_pixie_mouse is thinking, "Please don't let them question about my pill bottle."
Because when she visits me, she tends to bring along a single bottle with enough of each of her regular meds to cover her for the time she's visiting - much easier than carrying half a dozen little pill bottles, y'see? Only of course it's not specifically legal. By law, if you're crossing the border particularly, you have to have the labelled prescription bottles.
So where does the privilege start? When the border officer comes back inside from the car search, and calls us over to the counter, where he asks the_pixie_mouse about her meds. She decides to play dumb a bit, say she didn't know she wasn't supposed to do that, and he let us off with no more than a short lecture.
That's the privilege, right there, in being two middle-class white women, and not, say, two middle-class brown women. He said he didn't think it looked like we were likely to be aiming to sell the narcotics we were bringing in, but was unspecific as to how he came to that conclusion. I find it difficult to believe that at least one factor that went into that conclusion wasn't race.
See? That's how privilege works. You don't have to want it. You can even hate having it. You can be someone who spends a lot of time and effort on trying to eradicate unearned privilege.
But you can't make other people not give it to you.
Even if we'd both stood there and insisted they treat us as they would someone who didn't have our privilege, all it would have done is make them think we're a bit less than totally secure in our sanity. It wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to how they will perceive the next brown folk who come along. We can't make them suspect us as they would those brown people.
Having privilege doesn't make you a bad person. It's out of your control, for the most part.
Taking advantage of it, when you have a choice?. That's where being a bad person starts.
* In the end, they believed me, basically because I said so. More privilege. Also, they said that having a phone bill or cable bill would have sufficed in showing I intended to return to Canada. I leave to the reader the job of assessing the logic behind that decision - that my several pieces of government-issued picture ID wouldn't convince them, but the fact that I have once had cable service would.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: Poop Bubble. lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Mods Get to See the Darnedest Things
From an enormous comment, which I had the pleasure of deleting a few minutes ago:
See back then (pre agricultural society like 4000 BCE+) when we were hunter gatherers we were equal. We had specific roles but then as we reached a step in complex society virtually in every example women's status degraded fast. The more advanced a society got, it seems that the more ornamental women become. We are right now are on the other swing of the pendulum in the past century but luckily it won't be significant enough to affect me too bad before I pass. Do you not think that every male has a streak of his brain designed to be the Alpha male, get as many fertile females as possible in his possession, and defend/protect them and his territory?!Thanks!
...Believe me, I would be MUCH happier if you guys were still ornamental and society allowed us complete power over you guys. It would make focusing on education and career much easier because you wouldn't have to worry about appeasing an equal.
Oh well, good luck with your blog posts.
USA: Beacon of Stupid
Add Rep. Harry Mitchell (D-AZ) to the growing list of people who are getting non-terror death threats. I particularly like the content of this message left for him:
Caller: You are going to have to look over your f*&king shoulder because people in your district hate your f*&king face. I love my insurance company and to have you come between me and my f*&king doctor. I cannot tell you how much I wish a panty bomber would come in and just f*&king blow your place up.The problem that we're experiencing now is quite possibly the biggest indictment against our educational system. The level of ignorance and outright stupidity, and the absence of critical thinking skills, are only helping to cultivate a totally details-illiterate mob that is easily susceptible to any suggestion, no matter how ridiculous or how not grounded in actual fact. And if you take a mob that has no value for information or any capacity to debate an issue, the mob resorts to violence to defend itself.
"I love my insurance company"
I'm at a loss as to how one could love their insurance company. If I was 100% healthy and never needed to see a doctor, I don't think I'd love shoveling my money to them for no reason. If I need to see a doctor, I can't say I love the fact that I must choose a doctor that's within my carrier's network or else I pay through the nose.
"and to have you come between me and my f*&king doctor"
WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK AN INSURANCE COMPANY IS, YOU IGNORANT FUCKING DIPSHIT?! WHO DO YOU THINK DECIDES WHETHER OR NOT THEY WILL PAY FOR YOUR TREATMENT, EFFECTIVELY COMING BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR DOCTOR??!?!
I know I can yell 'til I'm blue in the face and that it won't help. Heck, these people are even lost on the fact that Mike Vanderboegh, leader of the Window Smash Movement, collects social security (aka government handouts). They don't even understand or know what they are fighting for.
They claim they are against big government and government intervention, yet they still manage to come up with this award winning stance:
70 percent of those who sympathize with the Tea Party, which organized protests this week against President Barack Obama's health-care overhaul, want a federal government that fosters job creation.Sure sounds like bigger government and government intervention to me!
They also look to the government to rein in Wall Street, with almost half saying the government should do something about executive bonuses.
But hey, what does it matter if something makes sense?
I Was Just Thinking...
...the other day that living in Indiana would be so much better if only the state had some giant poop bubbles. Huzzah!
[H/T to Shaker Constant Comment.]
Quote of the Day
"I have said from the start that my goal was to see health-care reform pass while maintaining the long-standing principle of the sanctity of life. ... I and other pro-life Democrats are pleased that we were able to hold true to our principles and vote for a bill that is pro-life at every stage of life."—Democratic Representative Bart Stupak, in a piece for the Washington Post titled "Why I wrote the 'Stupak amendment' and voted for health-care reform."
I never cease to be amazed at how the life of a woman who is pregnant and doesn't want to be always fails to be part of pro-life calculations, how her quality of life is missing utterly from these discussions.
What is so goddamn sacred about a life lived in a body of which ownership is denied?
Reminder: Subscription Renewals
We first made the Subscribe to Shakesville page available last March, which means most of the subscriptions are running out this month.
At the time the page was set up, a bunch of Shakers asked that I please post a reminder around this time, so, as requested, here's the reminder to renew your subscriptions!
Or the encouragement to start one, as the case may be.
As always, my profound thanks and gratitude to those who have donated and subscribed to Shakesville. This community couldn't exist without your support.
And let me reiterate, once again, that I don't want anyone to feel obliged to contribute financially, especially if money is tight. Aside from valuing feminist work, the other goal of fundraising is so Iain and I don't have to struggle on behalf of the blog, and I don't want anyone else to struggle themselves in exchange. There is a big enough readership that neither should have to happen.
ô,ôP
[Why Shakesville needs subscribers is explained here.]
